August 26, 2017

Deep State removing most dangerous figures first, least dangerous last

Now that Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka have been removed by the Pentagon boarding party, the basis for someone getting taken out is clear: those who were a greater threat were removed first, and lesser and lesser threats have been removed afterward.

A person's threat to Deep State is a function of two factors:

1) How anti-Establishment their positions are, and

2) How much political capital they have to achieve those goals.

The first to get railroaded was Michael Flynn, spending less than a month as National Security Advisor. He is against the Pentagon Establishment's mission to prolong the long-gone Cold War, antagonize Russia, prop up and expand NATO, and partner with jihadists. He wants to shift focus to radical Islam, antagonize jihad-enabling states (only mistake being the inclusion of Iran here), and form alliances against those threats.

His political capital comes from being a three-star General from the Army and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which gave him a decent amount of connections, favors owed from allies, blackmail material against enemies, etc., among members of one of the main elite power groups that control the government (the military).

Next in line was Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who was forced into recusing himself from the Russia hysteria witch hunt just over two weeks after Flynn was fired.

From his lack of results above and beyond what any generic Republican AG appointed by any generic Republican President would have done, we can infer that Sessions has also been bullied into not prosecuting the high-ranking criminals from the Clinton and Obama camps, not working in tandem with DHS to deport illegal immigrants faster than Obama did, not defunding sanctuary cities (who will only lose one-half of one percent of their federal funding), and in general not advancing a distinctly Trumpian agenda at the DoJ.

That submission to the Establishment is tantamount to a firing.

Deep down, though, he is vehemently opposed to the Establishment's approach to law enforcement relating to immigration, as well as on trade policies, although as AG he is not in a position to affect trade. Being such a strong nationalist on immigration put him in the crosshairs.

Sessions spent 20 years in the highest legislative body in the nation, and was on good terms with most of Congress, so he had plenty of political capital to achieve his goals.

Those two were the big guns that Trump brought into his cabinet, and they were removed or de-fanged first. Others who are on a similar anti-Establishment wavelength have lasted longer only because they did not have nearly as much political capital to pose as large of a threat. The Pentagon junta, primarily General McMaster, has removed several of the Flynn people over the past several months, who may have had previous experience in government and the military, but who were not Generals or directors of major agencies.

Bannon and Gorka were put on the back burner of the purge since their roles were not so central to running a given place within the government, and were more of a general strategist and adviser to the President. Hailing from the conservative media world, they came to DC with even less political capital than the Flynn hires who were purged from the national security apparatus. If they were a CEO at one of the five mega-corporations that control the media, like Fox, they would have posed more of a threat and would have been targeted for removal earlier.

Presumably Stephen Miller is next, at this rate before Thanksgiving. He is anti-Establishment on foreign policy, immigration, and trade. But like Bannon and Gorka, he came to DC with little capital, having been a senior staffer for Jeff Sessions in the Senate. And we see what happened to Sessions himself. He's also the youngest, and therefore with the least experience in any domain of power.

Who, then, is relatively safer from getting removed? Anyone who is pro-Establishment, regardless of their amount of political capital. This confuses many people, though, because they assume that just because Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump coasted through longer than Mike Flynn or Steve Bannon, that means they wield as much influence within the government as Chief Economic Advisor and long-time CEO of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, who is also still in the White House.

I've discussed this since April, when the faux beef between Bannon and Kushner was being hyped in the media, and being swallowed by many Trump supporters (in reality, they were in a tactical alliance against the war-mongers, as the Pentagon over-ruled Trump on regime change in Syria). Kushner not only has no experience in government or the military, he doesn't even rank highly in the area he hails from (his father does). And at any rate, "real estate developers" is not a major power group controlling the government, or else Trump would not have had to run for President overtly.

Ditto for Ivanka's lack of power and influence. Even combined as a couple, they have zero political capital. On top of that, though, they are generally pro-Establishment, albeit on the Democrats' side -- that's why Kushner was willing to align with Bannon against the Pentagon's escalation in the Middle East. The Democrats are controlled by Wall Street, Republicans by the Pentagon. So Kushner as a Democrat wants the financial elites, rather than the military elites, to be the faction that sucks the most out of the national treasury.

Gary Cohn, on the other hand, was the second-highest executive at Goldman Sachs for 10 years before invading the White House. Unlike real estate developers, those who control financial transactions are most definitely an elite power group controlling the government, and GS is the big bank on Wall Street. He wields as much power and influence as a three or four-star General from the armed forces. And more importantly, he is the embodiment of Establishment goals -- the only way he's leaving the White House is voluntarily, not as a result of Deep State machinations.

So Trump supporters should focus their attention on Globalist Gary, and not on Trump's daughter and son-in-law, as Democrat and pro-Establishment as they may be, because one has major power and the other has none. Trump fans should learn from the Establishment's methods and pick on those who pose the greatest danger first, and put lesser entities on the back burner.

They should also keep some perspective by emphasizing what a great loss it was when Flynn got railroaded and when Sessions got bullied into submission. Bannon, Gorka, and Miller leaving are losses of smaller magnitude. That doesn't mean things are about to get a lot better, just that the major losses to the Trump movement were sustained early. For several months now, it has largely but not wholly become an Establishment administration with Trump serving as the salesman.

Improvements can always come in the future, but we do have to admit to a paradox facing the populist and nationalist movement -- the more we promote and vote for people with a good deal of political capital, i.e. the ones who can actually get things done, the more likely they are to get sidelined in one way or another by the Swamp, whereas the Deep State will tolerate symbolic but powerless figures.

I think the solution is to make collective action by the citizens central, so that the Swamp cannot just target the next Mike Flynn for instant removal without fearing a rebellion across half the country. The collective behavior of the general public is the only thing that the Deep State and DC Swamp cannot control.

We have the numbers, and we individually have the zeal, but not necessarily yet the group cohesion to pose a collective threat to those in the Pentagon, Wall Street, etc., who would target our representatives in government.

5 comments:

On being "more effective outside" the government -- just a rationalization.

If true, they would have resigned rather than get purged, and they would have left awhile ago (April, May).

Bannon and Gorka are not passive types who just go along in an inferior position out of inertia.

Same with Mike Flynn -- he is obviously not more effective out of government than as head of the NSC with his team underneath him as well.

Same with Sessions -- he is obviously not more effective by recusing himself from the witch hunt and backing down from the major fights that need to be fought.

If Trump himself gets removed, would he say "I have tremendously enjoyed serving the American people, but I have always been a political outsider, and I have come to the decision that I can fight more successfully to Make America Great Again on the outside of government, rather than inside as President of the United States"?

Would the cheerleaders nod along and applaud? And say, "Well, at least Mike Pence has been elevated to carry out the populist and nationalist agenda with his buddies Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell"?

Flynn replaced by neo-con McMaster, Sessions replaced by liberal Democrat Rosenstein in the witch hunt, Flynn's team by McMaster's neo-con Islamist sympathizers, Bannon to be replaced by nobody, and perhaps the same fate for Gorka and Miller.

Even if it were true that a particular Trump supporter will be "more effective on the outside," we should be getting a Trumpian replacement who will be more effective inside.

That's the only way that a substitution of players will move the ball down the field -- not by replacing the retired player with someone from the opposite team.

I'm loving Comrade Stump's Twitter rant about the bourgeoisie socialists....My God, someone's finally said it. They're so painfully "how do you do fellow kids". CRINGE!They have no idea how much they stick out, like a fish that doesn't know it's wet.Some months back, a college socialist group disbanded when they realized they were nearly all from a very narrow segment of society: upper-middle class white dudes. Good for them. I wish more people were as honest with themselves.